Following a lead from the village shopkeeper, Emiliano spoke with Doña Catalina, a white-haired widow who embroidered at the door of her house. She had been there on the day of the signing.
“I was about to leave,” she said, without raising her voice much, “but I heard when the lawyer told Rogelio: ‘Everything is ready, it has already been registered. Now all that’s missing is the formal signature.’”
Emiliano swallowed.
“Would you testify to that?”
The woman looked at him for a long while.
“Six years ago, I was afraid. At this point, I no longer want to stand before God carrying this silence.”
With that statement, with the business registry, and with the altered date of the transfer, Mateo Rivas requested an urgent injunction to prevent Rogelio from moving the property.
But Rogelio had already found out everything.
And he wanted to sell the house immediately to an outsider before the court order came down.
The news spread through the village the way things spread in villages: from shop to shop, from sidewalk to sidewalk, without any need for a newspaper. Emiliano needed time. So he did something no one saw coming.
He went to Don Beto, the shopkeeper.
